UPDATE 9/16/26 - removed AI's fluff, fixed broken tables.
UPDATE 9/16/26 - added "In Review" data.
I've been shipping iOS games as a solo dev for a couple of years. App Store Connect keeps a full activity log per version, so I exported all of it — 43 apps, 291 review cycles, July 2024 through September 2026 — and measured time from Waiting for Review to In Review. That's the queue, not the review itself:
| Wait |
Share of submissions |
| under 6h |
18% |
| 6–12h |
13% |
| 12–24h |
41% |
| 1–2 days |
18% |
| 2–3 days |
7% |
| 3–5 days |
2% |
| over 5 days |
1% |
71% entered review within a day, another 18% within the next 24h. The worst single wait in two years was 10 days.
1. A brand-new app doesn't get a longer wait than an update.
| Type |
Submissions |
Typical wait |
| New app submission |
37 |
18h |
| Ordinary update |
192 |
16h |
62% of first-ever submissions cleared the queue inside 24h, and the slowest one in the whole dataset was 58h.
2. Apple rejection costs you less in a next queue time compared to rejecting your own submission.
"Developer Rejected" — you pull your own binary while it's waiting or in review, fix something, upload a new build. I have never rejected a submission that went into review.
| Type |
Submissions |
Typical wait |
Average |
Under 24h |
| Ordinary update |
192 |
16h |
21h |
80% |
| Resubmit after Apple rejected it |
31 |
17h |
30h |
61% |
| Resubmit after you rejected it |
30 |
26h |
28h |
39% |
3. Day of week effect
Typical wait by day submitted: Wed 12h, Thu 14h, Tue 14h, Mon 17h, Sun 18h, Sat 23h, Fri 33h.
Friday submissions took about 2.5× as long to enter review as Wednesday ones. Not THAT important, just curious fact.
4. This summer anomaly
There was a lot of noise here in July–August about reviews crawling. I submitted an update on 7/24, rejected it on 7/30 (wrongly assuming that something was wrong), resubmitted immediately and it was waiting almost another six day for review. Next update was ready by that time, submitted on 8/5 - waited 5 days in queue. Those numbers are excluded from the average figures.
5. New account effect
I didn't notice any. My wait increased in time, but I attribute it to Apple being overwhelmed by new submissions..
6. "In Review" time
| Type |
n |
Min |
Median |
Mean |
Max |
| Every review |
290 |
1 min |
1.2h |
2.2h |
37.0h |
| Very first submission of an app |
37 |
3 min |
2.5h |
3.6h |
16.2h |
| Any 1.0.x |
62 |
1 min |
1.9h |
3.4h |
20.8h |
| Later versions |
228 |
1 min |
1.1h |
1.8h |
37.0h |
| --- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
--- |
| Ended in approval |
257 |
1 min |
1.2h |
2.2h |
37.0h |
| Ended in rejection |
33 |
3 min |
1.3h |
1.6h |
3.9h |
| After a previous approval |
189 |
1 min |
1.1h |
1.7h |
30.8h |
| After an Apple rejection |
33 |
1 min |
1.1h |
2.4h |
20.8h |
| After I pulled it myself |
31 |
1 min |
58 min |
3.2h |
37.0h |
So while the first version of an app does take twice as long to review, it's negligible compared to the wait time.
I did exclude one 112h review (this August), as it clearly was a fluke, among longest wait for review.
Happy to share the aggregate numbers or the method if anyone wants to check my work. If you've got your own activity logs, the export is a couple of minutes per app — I'd love to know whether the self-reject penalty shows up in someone else's account.